The phenomenon of change resistance
The definitions of sustainability focus primarily on the proper practices required to live sustainably. However, there is also the need to consider why there is such strong resistance to adopting sustainable practices.
Barriers to achieving ecological sustainability
There has been long-standing and widespread public awareness of the seriousness of the consequence of overpopulation (e.g., Nelson, 1986; Yankelovitch, et al., 1983; Diamond, Jared (2005) ).
Unruh (2000, 2002) has argued that numerous barriers to sustainability arise because today's technological systems and governing institutions were designed and built for permanence and reliability, not change. In the case of fossil fuel-based systems this is termed "carbon lock-in" and inhibits many change efforts.
Others, particularly Thwink.org, argue that if enough members of the environmental movement adopted a problem solving process that fit the problem, the movement would make the astonishing discovery that the crux of the problem is not what it thought it was. It is not the proper practices or technical side of the problem after all. Any number of these practices would be adequate.
Instead the real issue is why is it so difficult to persuade social agents (such as people, corporations, and nations) to adopt the proper practices needed to live sustainably? Thus the heart of the matter is the change resistance or social side of the problem.
This is generally attributed to “change resistance” (see, e.g., Thwink.org), viewed as involving change in individual values, whether at personal, corporate, or collective levels (see e.g., Stafford Beer). Unfortunately, it has been frequently demonstrated, e.g., in the studies cited, that people’s values are, in general, in the right place. The problem is to enact them. This has led to the preparation of numerous “wish lists”—such as that compiled by Shah, H., & Marks, N. (2004)—drawing together many recommendations for government action.
Government and individual failure to act on the available information is widely attributed to personal greed (deemed to be inherent in human nature) especially on the part of international capitalists. But even Karl Marx did not suggest this, instead highlighting sociological processes which have been in operation for thousands of years.Murray Bookchin likewise documents this process over millenia, describing, in detail, the factors that were operational at each transition point. If fault is to be found with Marx's work it can be argued that it lies elsewhere. Because he believed that the collapse of capitalism was imminent, he never discussed how to run society in an innovative way in the long term public interest. Strangely, Bookchin, in the end, does not suggest how to intervene in and harness the sociocybernetic processes he has identified but contents himself with an account of requisite features of a sustainable society derived from his analysis of organic (primordial) societies.
Two things seem to follow from this brief discussion.
- It is vital to follow up the study of the sociocybernetic, or systems (see also systems theory), processes which, it seems, primarily control what happens in society.
- We should use the social-science-based insights already available to evolve forms of Public management that will act on information in an innovative way in the long term public interest
Taken from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability#The_phenomenon_of_change_resistance
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